Flying Together, Flying Free
by PandaBear14
Summary: "Glinda wheeled about and cried out, "Oh, Elphie!" The Witch did not turn. They never saw each other again." What if Elphaba had turned? AU Bookverse. Implied Gelphie/Gelphie friendship. First Wicked Fanfic.


**Hey! This is my first Wicked fanfic, so don't judge please It's an AU fic from the point of Elphaba's last encounter with Glinda, and it's mostly bookverse, I think. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own the quote at the beginning, the characters, the storyline, or several quotes that I use from different sections of the novel. **

"_As she strode through the forecourt of Colwen Gournds, she crossed paths once again with Glinda. But both women averted their eyes and hurried their feet along their opposing ways. For the Witch, the sky was a huge boulder pressing down on her. For Glinda it was much the same. But Glinda wheeled about and cried out, "Oh, Elphie!" _

_ The Witch did not turn. They never saw each other again." _

_ -Wicked, page 355. _

The Witch turned and saw her old schoolmate behind her, her ridiculous dress weighing her down so much it seemed as if she crawled, her over-powdered face showing slight remorse as she looked towards Elphaba.

"Elphie-"

"I want those _shoes, _not your apology." The Witch spat.

"Elphaba, please. Forgive me, they're only shoes-"

"Only shoes!" Elphaba threw her hands up dubiously. "They weren't yours to give away, Glinda! She said she would give them to me!"

"Well, it isn't as if you ever cared for the shoes before, and I am sorry, didn't you hear me? Oh, do forgive me."

Forgiveness. The Witch loathed the word and loathed the fact she had never been able to get it from Sarima, from Nessarose, from Glinda even. Glinda was different than the others, but she could not afford to give something she had not received, so Elphaba only shook her head in mild disgust.

"Elphaba! I'm sorry, I've told you that before. But please, oh Elphie, don't take it out on the girl, she's innocent, I swear!"

"All I know is that Nessa was alive before she got here, and now she's dead." The Witch remarked bitterly, staring at Glinda's face, trying to make her understand-

"The girl was a passenger, not the pilot! Elphie, you're starting with this old paranoia thing again."

"I. Want. Those. Shoes." Elphie seethed, glaring at Glinda.

"There's no power in them for you! They're worthless. Let the girl have them."

And same as the conversation before, Elphaba could not shake the feeling that this problem was too trivial, too small to pull them apart. They were still stuck, neither one moving, but someone needed to break the spell. The Witch stepped forward, trying to make Glinda see, trying to make her _believe. _"Glinda. Don't you see? These are _my shoes, _they're mine, mine, I swear. They're the only thing I have left of my sister." Elphaba continued her wild rantings, pausing only to catch her breath.

Glinda shook her head. "I'm sorry, Elphie."

"You don't understand."

"I do, but I had to get the shoes out of Munchkinland, the Munchkins worship them, please, just don't hurt the child."

Elphaba turned and strode quickly away. But Glinda cried out, "Oh, Elphie! I forgive you! I'm sorry!"

Forgiveness. The thing she had longed for. A bitter smile graced the mouth of Elphaba, and she continued away. She did not look back.

High in her tower at Kiamo Ko, the Witch watched the girl move. She had to accept reality. Her familiars were dead, the scarecrow nothing but straw. She would not be forgiven, Sarima was gone, and Nessarose dead.

The Witch appeared at the doorway of the kitchen, watching Dorothy and Liir interact, watching Dorothy react with surprise as Liir told her that the Wicked Witch of the West was, indeed, living here.

"She is?" The Witch surveyed the girls face, pale and in great surprise.

The Witch stepped through the doorway and strode down the steps. "She is. Well, Chistery, you did good work! I'm glad to see all of my efforts haven't been for nothing. Dorothy, why, it's Dorothy Gale, whose house had the nerve to make a crash landing on my sister!"

The girl stammered some weak apology about how it wasn't her house, no, it was someone else's, but the Witch ignored her mindless blabbering. Dorothy nervously began, "And I am ever so sorry about what happened to your sister, why I'd done anything to avoid it. Really, I'm sorry."

The Witch turned blind with rage, and all promises to herself and Glinda forgotten, she marched the girl up the stairs to into the tower room and began to interrogate the child.

"Why have you come here? Is it to steal my book? To kill me?"

And Dorothy backed away, crying, "Please, don't make me do this, please!"

"You came to kill me? To kill me and then steal the Grimmerie?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You can't possibly lie to me like that, tell me the truth! Why have you come here? Are you the third Adept? Ah, is it you, Nessa, and Glinda? Or are you simply here to kill me?"

"I couldn't kill you, no, not after what happened to your sister. No, I came because I wanted to say to you, I wanted to ask you: Would you ever forgive me for the accident, for the death of your sister, because I would never be able to forgive myself!"

The Witch paused in her questioning, and stared open mouthed at the girl. Was this some cruel twist of fate, the thing that she wanted so much being waved in her face again? But no, Elphaba thought to herself, she was not entirely unforgiven, Glinda has forgiven me, and so I have forgiven her. And Elphaba remembered her last request one more time, "Do not hurt the child." And Elphaba lowered her broom and pointed it at the door, shouting to the girl, "Go! Go!" And the poor girl, frightened out of her mind, scrambled down the steps of the tower, while the Witch-or was it now simply Elphaba?-shouted after her: "I forgive you! I forgive you, Dorothy Gale. I forgive you, Glinda!"

That night, the Witch disappeared, never to be seen again. Lady Glinda had a bad night, a night of shakes and regret and pain. She sat up half the night and lit a candle in her window, and as the moon cast it's spotlight on her in its path from the Vinkus, she heard a soft voice whispering in her ear, "Glinda, my sweet, Glinda, I forgive you." And she turned towards the noise, she saw a figure climbing through her window.

"Oh, Elphie!"

The Witch smiled.

And some say trailing across the sky that night were the silhouettes of two figures against the moon.


End file.
